Thursday, July 29, 2004

The last two nights have been spent tracking pre-production type takes of 3 songs. We've decided to demo 3 of our new songs for this next round of recording. The purpose is two fold. It allows us to become familiar with the Digidesign gear, and ProTools. It will also give us an opportunity to listen critically to the parts we're playing and provide feedback to one another.

Kiss Me Goodbye, Mr. Knowitall, and Silver Lines, which is a new song title for the song we debuted live last week. Raw drum and bass tracks have been recorded and we will start tracking guitars and vocals over the weekend. I'm hopeful by the end of next week all recording for these tracks will be complete and then we can spend a week or so learning how to use the effects plug ins, mix automation, as well as final eq'ing for cd mastering.

The beauty of digital recording became apparent last night. We peformed a handful of punch-ins on the bass and were able to easily select the section we wanted to punch in visually, provide a 4 bar lead in, and 2 bars out of the take. We were able to do all bass recording and punch ins for three tracks in about 2 1/2 hours, and that was with the learning curve of ProTools as an obstacle.

When we did our last set of demos to ADAT, the punch process involved setting locations, punch in and punch out points, and then recording. You had to hope that the punch in/out points weren't audibly noticeable and didn't disrupt the previous parts. In the event that the punch in or out point was slightly off you had to expand the duration of the punch in and try again. Digitally if you don't like what you did or you did it in the wrong place, you just click Undo.

The ProTools set up will likely cut our recording time in half compared to what we had to deal with previously. We will also have much more control over compression, EQ, reverb, etc...

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Monday, July 26, 2004

My daughter and I spent a couple of hours at the studio tonight tuning the toms. I purchased a Drum Dial that allows one to easliy measure the tension of the head at each lug. The goal is to match at each lug and then the head is in tune with it self.

Running through this exercise made a HUGE difference. The toms are well spaced musically from one another and the overtones and ringing I used to get seem to be almost entirely gone.

Tomorrow night I'll need to set up the snare drum with a new top head and we will likely begin tracking Kiss Me Goodbye.

Well we aren't quite to the recording phase but we worked through most of the gear, mic'd up the drums and are recording through the line ins as well as through the ADAT light pipe.

Other than learning on the fly about digital clocking, and isolating a couple of noisy cables, things went rather smoothly. It took about 2.5 hours to get things up and going, and we were able to successfully simultaneously record 10 tracks live to disc. I'm confident running up to 16 tracks live will not be a problem and will likely be something we test tonight.

Toward the end of the night we figured out how to break out separate mixes so I can get a mix with a click track and no drums, and the rest of the band can get some drums and no click through their headphones.

All in all the Digi 002R is a very cool piece of gear.

The mission for tonight will be to tune the drums and likely replace some of the drum heads.

Saturday, July 24, 2004

Last night we played at Jake's Toadhouse and had a great time. Sana Band opened the set and played two 40 minute sets before we went on. Pretty interesting and obscure blues covers. They were having their cd release party which for them was unfortunately a bust. I don't think they had one person come through the door to see their set. The last song of their set was a James Brown cover with a guest performance by one of their friends who did an amazing James Brown. His performance alone was worth the price of admission. An older black man likely in his late 50s. He danced, did splits, and a had the presence of James Brown at his peak 30+ years ago.

We ended up going on shortly after midnight and played about 2 hours. When it was all said and done we left the stage after 2am. A late night indeed. For those that came out we unleashed 3 new original tunes. Mr Knowitall, I Guess, and Don't Start. I think Don't Start is a working title but we may end up keeping it. Katie wrote the new tunes and they are some of her strongest material yet.

Stu, a friend of Mike V, and now a friend of the band came up for 4 songs and played harmonica. A couple of covers including Blues Traveler's Runaround and When The Levee Breaks by the mighty Zep.

All in all a good night. We sold a couple of shirts, made some new friends, and I was even able to lure a couple of my co-workers out for a late night.

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Sunday, July 18, 2004

The Superlatives, my band, has decided to record our first cd. The irony is this all happens as we are invited to play a new series of shows in the Atlanta area. Including Jake's Toadhouse, Smiths Olde Bar, and possibly an appearance on one of the college radio shows.

Back to the cd... We are hoping for a release in December, however the biggest obstacle, and greatest opportunity is we are doing this ourselves. Mike Voss and I will likely be doing all of the recording, engineering and production. I've put up the money for most of the new gear we need to complete the project.

The great thing about this system is the software will be a ProTools LE 32 track system. We will increase our tracks from the 24 ADAT tracks we had, and we will have the flexibility of digital recording and editing. The bad thing is we have zero experience.

All the gear should be set up in our studio this upcoming week and we will likely record a rehearsal or two to see how everything is working out before we focus on recording tracks. I'll get some pictures of the setup later this week.

Our next show is Friday July 23rd at Jake's Toadhouse. They liked our demo and press kit and called us this past Thursday to book us. Now if only all bookings were that easy.

Friday, July 09, 2004

Here is an email I shared with a coworker yesterday. Not something I'm necessarily proud of, but it is my life nonetheless.

Subject: The Morning After

I'm glad my day didn't start in atlanta because I'd still be on the ground.

I woke up at 6:08 for a 7:05 flight. Evidently setting an alarm clock in a druken stupor is not a skill I have.

I get downstairs, grab some cash since I can't wait for a credit card cab, check out and hop in a cab. I get to the airport at 6:15. I've now been awake for less than 10 minutes.

I walk to the delta counter and the line is going almost out the door. So my sorry ass with no delta status walks through the first class line and the person at the counter said nothing. Maybe it was the fact that my flight was to leave in 40 minutes, maybe it was the unbrushed hair, or maybe it was the alcohol still on my breath. She didn't say a word, just processed my ticket and gave me no direct eye contact.

I'm now waiting to board my flight, still tipsy, slightly dehydrated, and so tired I can barely bring my vision into focus.

All I can say is today would not have been possible in atlanta. And I'm the only person I know that wakes up less than an hour before their flight and actually makes it in a post 9/11 world.

Thanks for getting my ass trashed last night. Enjoy your game of golf.